Wickedly awesome Wednesday!

Wow what a Wednesday – we had fun!

This week we changed our exploring/play day to Wednesday as Mrs Fulford did some exploring and learning of her own on Tuesday. She was off to visit other schools who have implemented play based learning. Mrs Fulford came back with two important things...

1. that what we are doing is awesome and that we are one the right track.

2.  tons of ideas to inspire our own play/exploring time.

Bivouac - This week Mrs Fulford brought in a couple of tents and some equipment to make bivouacs. A bivouac shelter is a variety of improvised camp sites or shelters that is usually of a temporary nature. These can use elements of nature like sticks or trees or use canvas and man made products. Here is what Mrs Fulford showed us before our session. 

  

After a great discussion about sharing and working together, we set off. Some of us created a bivouac with the help of Colin from Room 11 and some of us were happy to play in the tents and pretend we were camping. The children who created the bivouac used a tarpaulin, boxes, heavy containers and string. We designed it in a great spot…under the oak tree. We used it’s lower branches to hold up the front of the bivouac. In our discussion at the end we thought next time chairs might be helpful and also facing the door out of the wind (Wednesday was very windy)

Here are the photos from our bivouac creating…

  

Here are the photos from our camping experiences…

Racing cars – The cars are still a big hit. However this week the boys decided to see which car could fly the furthest from the slide on the playground. The boys trialed pushing the cars from different places at the top of the slide and the strength at which they pushed them.  Mrs Fulford noticed how much learning was going on. The boys were learning about angles and force, as well as inquiring, communicating, reflecting, collaborating and thinking! Wow!

Creating - As always the art table was a very popular spot on Wednesday. There were children creating all sort of things. Charlie made a cross for Makaira and an awesome picture, Joseph drew a very scary picture of Muto (an alien beast) and Shanayah made a very creative looking container.

Here are the photos of the beautiful creations.

Pretend play - this week was a tad bit wild and windy outside so some of the girls made the most of the quiet space and played with the dolls house and equipment. Mrs Fulford noticed how focused they were and how they included new children into their make believe world. It was really interesting listening to the story about their make believe world evolve and change as they shared their ideas about what was happening. 

Risky business - Mele spent some time on the playground today practising and developing her swinging and hanging skills. She was taking risks and learning her limits. Well done! She was very proud that she manage to hang upside for a full minute!